


Broken Vows

by IonaWestray



Series: Gargoyles: Ramble On [1]
Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Genre: Consensual Sex, Drinking, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24799486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IonaWestray/pseuds/IonaWestray
Summary: My take on what happened after the episode "Vows". Elisa is upset that Goliath broke his promise to her about going to Xanatos's wedding, and Goliath is struggling with the true demise of his union with Demona.
Relationships: Elisa Maza/Original Male Character, Goliath/Elisa Maza
Series: Gargoyles: Ramble On [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901287
Comments: 12
Kudos: 71





	Broken Vows

He had promised her he wouldn’t go.

To that farce of a wedding.

Back to her.

 _Her_.

Despite everything she had done, he went running after her like a love-sick puppy.

“Idiot,” Elisa muttered before she downed the last of her drink.

“Sorry?”

Elisa looked up from her drink and over to the man who stood next to her at the bar. He had dark skin and close-cropped black hair. He was tall and leanly muscled, and though his features were a little blocky, he was quite handsome, especially when he smiled at her revealing a dimple in one cheek.

She had gone to a bar to drown her sorrows tonight. She normally didn’t hang out at bars, but she needed a night off; a night free of anything related to her job or gargoyles and the craziness of the city. A night away from Goliath and her anger towards him that she couldn’t shake. He had lied to her, and that hurt more than his attempt to get Demona back.

“No, I’m sorry. I was just…thinking aloud about someone.”

“Clearly someone whose done you wrong,” he replied.

“You could say that,” she said peering down into her glass.

“Can I buy you another drink?” the man said noticing her empty glass.

“Sure,” Elisa replied. “Why the hell not.”

“Another round for the lady and me,” he asked the bartender who nodded and poured scotch into two glasses. The man took a seat next to her.

“Lagavulin? You have good taste,” he said admiringly.

Elisa huffed.

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t be here tonight,” she joked.

He laughed at that, and it was a rich wonderful sound that made her smile.

He asked her name.

“Elisa,” she replied.

“Pretty.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Pretty.”

He rolled his eyes and laughed.

“My name’s Isaac.”

“It’s nice to meet you, _Isaac_.”

He smiled warmly, flashing that dimple again.

“So, what do you do, Elisa? You don’t look like a tourist.”

“Why? Because I don’t look lost?”

“Well, you don’t look lost because you don’t know where you are, let’s put it that way,” he said observantly.

“I’m a cop,” she said and took a sip from her drink.

“Interesting. I’m an EMT.”

Elisa arched a brow.

“I wonder if we’ve met before? I’ve…ridden in more ambulances than I’d care to.”

“I doubt it. Pretty sure I’d remember you.”

Elisa liked him. He was smooth, but not in a creepy way. He had a gentle confidence about him that drew her to him. They had a few more drinks, and continued to talk for a long while. About their jobs, mostly, as they swapped work stories. He was easy to talk to, and he made her laugh.

When he leaned in and kissed her, she let him, and returned his kiss enthusiastically. They proceeded to make out at the bar like a couple of teenagers, and when he asked her if she wanted to go back to his place, she surprised herself and said yes.

They tore each other’s clothes off as soon as they got to his apartment. Fueled by alcohol and hormones, but Isaac paused when he saw her scar.

“Do you have a heart condition?” he asked.

“No. I was shot a year ago, but I’m fine now. Don’t worry about it.”

Isaac’s eyes opened wide with shock and fascination right before she pushed him onto the bed and straddled him. He quickly forgot about it after that.

The sex was good, and Elisa enjoyed the distraction, but she found her thoughts kept drifting to another. She didn’t think of the man who was touching her, moving inside of her.

She kept thinking of _him_.

She thought of him as she orgasmed, and bit her tongue to refrain from calling out his name.

Afterwards, when Isaac had fallen asleep and Elisa had slipped away, she went home, and took a long hot shower. Then she sat at her kitchen table in her robe and sipped a cup of coffee. She had never had a one-night-stand before, but she hadn’t had sex in so long and…she was lonely. She had the gargoyles, her family, her partner and her friends at work, but she went home to an empty apartment every night, and she just needed to be wanted, touched, and adored even if it was just for one night.

She didn’t know why Goliath had filled her thoughts so much. Nor did she understand why she felt so guilty. It wasn’t like she had cheated on anyone. She and Goliath…they were just friends. He could be nothing but a friend. She wasn’t attracted to him…she couldn’t be. He wasn’t even human!

And then it suddenly dawned on her, the reason she was so willing to go back to Isaac’s place despite how risky and unlike her it was. It was his voice. Low and rumbling, very much like the large gargoyle leader. Elisa shivered and got up to grab the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet above the fridge. She liberally poured some into her empty coffee mug and downed it as she tried not to think about what it all meant.

There was a sudden knock at her window, and she looked up at the sound to see Goliath standing outside on her roof.

Her stomach dropped. She couldn’t do this right now.

She approached her window and noted the almost mournful look on Goliath’s face. She opened the window enough to talk to him.

“I don’t really want to talk to you right now,” Elisa said as she clutched her robe tightly together.

“I see I have caught you at a bad time,” he said quietly. “I will come back another night.”

His voice, just the mere sound of it sent a shiver down her spine that settled between her thighs. Her heart pounded as she looked at him. She _was_ attracted to him. Intensely. She thought of the man who had touched her so intimately just a few hours ago and replaced his lips, his hands, his body with Goliath’s. She shivered at the imagery and the desire that it invoked.

“No, wait…would you like a cup of coffee?” she said quietly, and opened the window all the way for him.

Goliath glanced at her and then over to her table where the open bottle of whiskey sat. He arched a brow at her.

“…or whiskey?” she added, noticing his gaze.

“I would take a dram, yes,” he said and stepped inside.

Elisa walked into her kitchen, grabbed a tumbler, poured a few fingers of whiskey into it and handed it to him.

He took a delicate sniff of the amber liquid and then tossed it back without flinching or making any other sign of discomfort.

Elisa eyed him. Clearly he was not an inexperienced drinker. They had never shared a drink before and she wondered how much he could consume before he even felt buzzed. Based on his size and mass, she figured he could likely drink the whole bottle before feeling a thing.

“Would you care for another?” she teased.

“It is not very often that I indulge,” he said as he held his glass out to her.

She gave him a generous pour. This time he nursed it instead of downing it in one.

“Neither do I, but I guess we’re both getting into our cups tonight,” Elisa said as she sat back down at her table.

“It has been a difficult couple of nights,” Goliath muttered.

Elisa nodded and looked down at her cup.

“I’ll say,” she said quietly. Then she looked back up at him, her eyes steely.

“You promised you wouldn’t go,” she seethed as her anger at him quickly came back. She gripped her cup tightly. “You _promised_.”

Goliath looked away.

“I made a promise to her, too, long ago,” he said mournfully.

Elisa ground her jaw.

“She has tried to kill you a handful of times. She has tried to kill _me_! Whatever promises you made to her are null and void now!”

“Just because she no longer keeps her promises, it does not mean I should break mine!” Goliath snapped.

“And yet…you broke your promise to me. Over someone who you know doesn’t love you back.”

Goliath opened his mouth to protest and then shut it.

“She doesn’t deserve your devotion, Goliath,” she said pointedly. “Not anymore. Not after all the things she has done.”

Goliath looked down at her. His face stony.

“I know that now,” he said bitterly.

Elisa sighed and set down her mug. Goliath tossed back the rest of the whiskey she had given him and set the glass down less than gently onto the table.

“Tell me what happened,” Elisa said trying a gentler approach.

Goliath sighed and then told her about Xanatos’s wedding, the Phoenix Gate, and vows he made over a thousand years ago.

“The only good thing that came of this is that now I possess the Phoenix Gate. Not Demona or Xanatos.”

A year ago, Elisa would have laughed at the idea of a magical time-travelling talisman, but now she didn’t even bat an eye. Nothing surprised her anymore.

“Small comfort, I suppose, but why would you even want Demona back after everything she has done to you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Goliath looked away.

“We are the last of our kind…and she the only female.”

“So, you would grovel at her feet despite everything she has done, just for the sake of making babies? Jesus, do you honestly want _her_ to be a mother?”

“She already is,” he replied sadly, then he walked over to the window and stared pensively out into the night sky.

“We bore a child together once. The egg had yet to hatch along with the others in the rookery when my clan was slaughtered. I charged Princess Katharine with their care…but if it ever hatched, the hatchling lived and died a long time ago, but we still created that life together…and I thought if I could just get through to her again, we could bring new life to our clan once more.”

Elisa looked up at him surprised. She had never thought of him as a father before, and she felt a stab of jealousy unlike anything she had ever felt before.

“Goliath, that’s a noble idea, but you also have to consider the reality that you can’t recover a species with only one breeding pair. I’m sorry, but the genetic pool would be…well, it wouldn’t be good.”

He looked back at her, and the sorrow in his eyes shattered her heart. He was a large, walking open wound. He tried to hide it, but the scars of his losses had not healed much. Her anger towards him evaporated instantly. No wonder he wasn’t being rational. The poor guy obviously had a bad case of PTSD.

“Gargoyles mate for life, Elisa, and I loved her. I loved her more than anything. I had to try to reach her, to get through to her…one last time. Have you ever loved someone like that? That you would walk through fire itself to save them?”

“No. I haven’t been that lucky…or unlucky, depending on how you look at it,” she joked.

Goliath smiled tightly at her.

“But it’s really over now between you two. Isn’t it?” Elisa asked. Her tone gentle and compassionate.

Goliath looked back out the window. He nodded once. Finally.

His wings and shoulders drooped. This was not a side of him that he allowed the others to see that much. The worn down, defeated leader. His vulnerability.

“I am sorry,” he said quietly.

Elisa looked up at him startled, and he turned back to look at her.

“I came here tonight because I wanted to apologize to you. You asked me not to go, you feared a trap, and you were right. I do not know yet whether or not I should have gone to Xanatos’s wedding, but I told you I would not go, and I went anyway. I broke my promise to you, and for that…I am sorry.”

“I forgive you,” Elisa replied softly, and she meant it.

“Thank you,” Goliath said humbly.

The pain in his eyes, the grief haunted her and she stood up to go to him, to comfort him, but as she stood up, the room spun, and she stumbled. Apparently, she’d had more to drink than she’d realized. She almost hit the floor, but then strong arms caught her. She looked up at Goliath who held her tightly in his arms.

“Nice catch,” she said quietly.

“Perhaps you have had enough to drink,” Goliath noted.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Elisa agreed.

Then she noticed that her robe had slid dangerously open. One leg was visible all the way up to her hip, and the front had opened almost down to her belly button, exposing a generous amount of cleavage. One sneeze, and she would bare it all to the large gargoyle.

He noticed all this just a split second after she did, and for a second his eyes roamed over her before snapping respectfully back to her face. He was close. Close enough Elisa could smell the whiskey on his breath. She had the sudden urge to press her lips to his. To tell him how she felt. She wanted him to untie her robe and take her to the floor. To feel his hands on her body.

For his part, Goliath was struggling.

Ever since Elisa had been turned into a gargoyle by Puck, he had looked at her differently. Before he liked her as a friend, but when he saw her as a gargoyle, he was instantly attracted to her. He was drawn to her. He _wanted_ her. He never thought he could ever have those feelings again for someone else, and it thrilled and terrified him.

He thought once she was human again those feelings would go away.

To his dismay and delight, they had not.

When he had gone to Xanatos’s wedding, part of him had hoped he could get Demona back, but another part of him knew it was futile. He knew she was never going to be his again. He knew she would reject him. Part of him would always love his Angel of the Night, but she had died a thousand years ago. The creature walking around with her face was not his mate. Not anymore.

But this human female…he didn’t know what to make of her.

She was incredibly fierce, loyal, kind, courageous…

Lovely.

He yearned for her, and that confused him more than anything.

He wanted to run his hand up her exposed thigh, to cup her backside. He wanted to slip his hand into the soft folds of her robe and caress her waist, her breasts. He wanted to taste her, run his tongue down her abdomen, and farther still.

His nostrils flared, and he felt himself stirring beneath his loincloth. He could smell her. The scent of her hair and her skin. Her natural scent as well as the floral scent of her soap…but there was something else. Something different. He sniffed discreetly.

There was the slight scent of something sharp and musky. A human male.

She had recently been…

Goliath blushed and set Elisa almost roughly back on her feet as he tried to regain his composure and his senses. Elisa glared at him, her cheeks flushed with anger or embarrassment or perhaps something else entirely, he couldn’t tell.

“Is there someone here with you?” he asked warily.

“No. Of course not. Why?” Elisa said furrowing her brow.

Goliath hadn’t noticed the scent of anyone else but Elisa in her apartment when he had first arrived, and he had never detected the scent of anyone but her before. No man lived there, and no man had been there this evening.

She had been somewhere else.

 _With_ someone else.

He was seized by a shockingly intense feeling of jealousy. Of betrayal.

_How could she?!_

And then he realized how much of a hypocrite he was.

Of course she deserved to try and find love with her own kind.

She was not his, and he was not hers.

The jealousy faded into a profound sense of sadness and loss.

“Nevermind, I…I don’t know what came over me,” he said shaking his head.

Elisa eyed him suspiciously.

“I should return to my patrol.”

“Are you patrolling alone?” Elisa asked concerned for his safety.

“I am.”

“I don’t like it when you patrol alone.”

Goliath sighed.

“Since it bothers you, I will tie in with Hudson and Bronx,” he said with a tip of his head.

“Thank you. I…I worry.”

Goliath gave her a small almost sad smile.

“Until next time, Elisa,” he said before he opened the window and stepped out onto the roof.

“Give my best to the others,” Elisa called after him.

Goliath nodded and leapt off her roof. Elisa shut the window behind him and locked it.

She turned back to her dark empty apartment and sighed.

She busied herself with cleaning up. She put away the bottle of whiskey and cleaned up the glasses. As she rinsed them out, one of them slipped from her fingers and shattered as it struck the bottom of the sink. She cursed and started carefully picking up the broken shards, and as she did, tears slipped down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away angrily with the back of her hand. She had shed enough tears over him tonight.

But he knew.

He knew she had been with someone else tonight.

And it had upset him.

She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

He had no right to be mad or jealous. He had no claim on her. God, he had just been chasing after his ex the night before! But the way he had looked at her when her robe had slipped out of place. The look on his face. The visible desire he had shown for a brief second. They couldn’t possibly...No. They could never have a life together. To even entertain the idea was foolishness.

But if that was the case, then why did she feel so complete, so whole when he was around and so bereft when he was gone?

Everything about him was what she wanted in a partner. He was intelligent, noble, kind...

But he wasn’t human.

The unfairness of their situation overwhelmed her, and a broken sob escaped her throat unbidden. She tried to squash it down, to repress it, but it was a futile effort as only more tears fell.

Elisa dropped the broken shards of glass into the sink, an apt metaphor for her broken heart, as she sank to the floor, clutching her knees to herself as she wept bitterly.


End file.
